JULIEN

II

Chapter 48

Welcome

Yalil Wilah ek Aïn was not completely delighted to have to adopt someone else's name, even if that someone had been friends with his Akou Tangpo, the much-missed Aïn Zadilak Bilalil ez a Katak. The fact that this someone was also Emperor of the Nine Worlds didn't alter the fact that he was going to have to abandon his beautiful name of Yalil in favour of something that sounded so weird that they had needed to adapt it in order to make it possible for civilised people to pronounce it. Despite his grief over the loss of Aïn, who had always treated him with huge affection bordering on favouritism, he had sulked about it for half a day before finally giving in to his mother's orders and then undergoing a very thorough wash followed by a brushing session that had left his silver-grey hair crackling with static electricity.

However, none of that compared to the shock he felt when he recognised, beneath the shining white Marks, the human boy he had mesmerised into scratching his head for a ridiculously long time. He almost disgraced himself by losing control of his bladder and leaving a puddle in the centre of the Family Circle. Somehow he managed to retain his dignity and sit still, without even twitching an ear, his gaze fixed on the guest of honour, who sat watching him impassively in his dark green hatik.

“Yalil Wilah ek Aïn,” started the guest, his voice strangely gentle for such a powerful being, “I was a friend of your father, your Akou Tangpo. He saved my life twice, and he was killed in front of my eyes while in my service...”

And then the unthinkable happened: the almighty Emperor of the Nine Worlds burst into tears, and it was quite a while before he was able to control himself and start speaking again.

“There was nothing I could do to prevent his death and we haven't yet caught those responsible,” he said. “But I want to honour him, and I'm told that giving you my name was the best I could do. Come here – we need to have a little chat.”

Yalil stood up and crossed the few metres of turf that separated him from Julien. Around them a score of family members sat under a spring-like sky in which a few fair-weather clouds drifted lazily.

Yalil, said Julien, putting his hand on the young Guide's neck, I chose you to take my name because I know you a bit and I like you. If you'd prefer me to choose someone else I won't mind. But you have to tell me now.

But while they were in direct contact like this Yalil could sense beyond the words, and he was able to feel Julien's sincere affection for him, and the grief he felt over the death of Aïn.

I will be proud to bear your name, he replied. And I like you, too.

Then we'll go ahead. Return to the centre of the Circle.

“As from now,” Julien announced, “you shall be known as Yülien Yalil Wilah ek Aïn and I am your Akou Nyipa. I also pledge, in memory of my friend Aïn, to respect my obligation to the Katak clan.”

After the ceremonial banquet which followed, Yalil approached Julien.

Akou, he said, Mummy says that, if you like,I can go with you for a little while to get to know your family.

Do you want to?

Oh, yes! I've never been to another world.

Then run and tell Master Wenn Hyaï that he has one extra passenger.

oo0oo

As can be imagined, the young Guide charmed the boys from the word go, and Julien had to issue some strict instructions in order to prevent him from being completely spoiled. Think of a young dog, but highly intelligent, always ready to play, cuddly, amusing and mischievous without ever turning mean and you have a good idea of what Yalil was like after a few hours of acclimatisation. He was dangerous, too, because he had – even though he didn't seem to realise it – powers of persuasion that bordered on the hypnotic.

The situation reached a critical point when they realised he had slipped away. After fifteen minutes of frantic searching they finally found their delinquent guest in the elevator nacelles of the Tower's lift system: he had mesmerised a young Guard into helping him to use them like a giant fairground ride. Wenn Hyaï, who had been called on to help with the search because of his understanding of the way a young Guide's mind works, took him off for a private discussion, the details of which weren't disclosed, but whatever he said had clearly had an effect, because after that Yülien's behaviour was still exuberant but remained within acceptable limits.

They had agreed that his first visit would only last three days, and he spent quite a lot of that time with Ambar, who was only too happy to take his strange adopted relative on a tour with him, showing him the wonders of Bakhtar Tower. They also took him on a brief visit to the lake at Rüpel Gyamtso, where he was introduced to the Lou Tchenns and was shamelessly petted by the staff of the house there.

But perhaps his strangest experience came when Julien took him to meet his parents. They were only too happy to welcome what they saw as a nice young puppy, while Gradik and Tenntchouk, who had finally accepted the Berthiers' offer of hospitality, performed a number of magic tricks in his honour which left the young Guide spellbound.

But when Julien introduced him to Aldegard it was Ugo who really won his heart. The young Guide didn't see Ugo as 'Yol the Intrepid', or 'Yol, Saviour of the Emperor', and certainly not as 'Yol the fallen Guide'. To him Ugo was simply an amazing, wonderful being who had lived through incredible adventures, and they immediately formed a close bond with each other. Ugo, during his life as Yol, had never had the opportunity to settle down and raise children, and so to have a youngster coming to join the family now was something he had dreamed of. This was instantly clear to both Julien and Aldegard, and accordingly they left the two of them alone together as much as they could.

When it was time to leave Yülien approached Julien and asked, in an uncharacteristically shy way, Please can I stay with Akou Ugo tonight?

Akou Ugo?

Well, yes. He's says he's sort of like your big brother.

I suppose that's true. And, yes, you can stay with him. But tomorrow morning we'll have to take you back to Hyaï Ho.

oo0oo

Chapter 49

'Satiable curiosity

Although he was not yet completely out of the wood Xarax's condition was gradually improving and he was now staying awake for most of the day. He had been taken out of the box and was now just immobilised in his bed, having been strictly ordered not to leave it if he wanted to avoid further possible harm to his already severely damaged wings. Despite the surgeons' skill it was clear that his abdomen would carry some nasty scars for the rest of his life, but his vital functions were now fully restored. His friends took it in turns to stay at his bedside so that Dillik, who continued to stay with him every night, could have a little time to himself.

Master Mirkham was proving that his reputation was fully deserved: he had collected a brilliant team who had finally overcome the technical challenge of the unique task they had undertaken. They had developed a special alloy whose strength and elasticity mimicked as closely as possible a haptir's wing bones, and the framework was now in a deep-water tank on Dvârinn where a supple coating was being applied to each of the carefully-manufactured pieces by an enormous mollusc, rather in the way that an oyster produces a pearl around a tiny foreign body. Master Mirkham said that the process would require another month or so in order for the coating to be strong enough and to offer the biological compatibility needed to allow the medical team to build it into the haptir's body.

Master Mirkham's team had also successfully found ways to copy the complicated joints which had evolved across thousands of years, producing artificial replacements that were not only fully compatible but also absolutely reliable – because it was clearly going to be out of the question to call the haptir back for regular servicing and lubrication once the operation was over.

When Julien wondered about the cost of the whole project, which he expected to be astronomically high, Tannder told him that in fact it wasn't going to cost the Imperial Treasury anything at all: the Nine Mirrors had decided unanimously to pay for everything – research, construction, insanely expensive materials and medical expenses – out of their own funds. When Julien queried this generosity he was told that, despite his change in appearance, the Mirrors felt that he had amply demonstrated that he was sincerely committed to the good of the population and that, moreover, his creation of a trading company whose profits were destined for the welfare of the poor had not gone unnoticed. They had therefore felt honour-bound to contribute as much as possible to help restore the Emperor's right-hand man – or haptir – to full health. Tannder added that when Master Mirkham had heard about that decision he had immediately decided to forgo the handsome fee he had haggled for only a few days previously.

Julien promptly decided that an overdeveloped sense of honour was perhaps not such a bad thing after all, since apparently it didn't always result in blood feuds and deadly duels...

oo0oo

The enquiry continued to make progress. They hadn't discovered anyone amongst those who had been probed who was actively involved in the conspiracy, but they were able to find out how Julien's schedule had been revealed inadvertently to complete strangers during nominally harmless conversations. There was no point in blaming those responsible: the conversations had been directed so cunningly that they had no idea that they had been indiscreet. And, indeed, after the probing was over they were sent back to their previous occupations completely unaware that anything untoward had been discovered. This turned out to be an excellent move, as it led to a useful discovery: one of the spies made the mistake of trying to obtain more information from one of his victims, and in the process he brought himself to the attention of Tannder's agents. They thought that if they were careful they would be able to follow this lead up to a level high enough to provide them with some truly useful information.

In the meantime Julien resumed his training, now with Wenn Hyaï, in order to improve his efficiency as a Guide as soon as his Gift stabilised once more. A large part of that training was developing an extensive visual memory of the klirks to the major destinations which would help him make proper use of the Orientation Table – even though at this stage he was still unable to reach it. He argued that he didn't need to spend time on this because as soon as Xarax was well again he would be able to use his eidetic memory to provide him with an image of any klirk he needed, but Wenn Hyaï refused to let him stop, pointing out, reasonably enough, that Xarax might not always be around to help him. Julien also had to master a vast array of theory so complicated that it almost made him nostalgic for the simpler days of the school maths lessons he had once cursed so vehemently.

At the start he had the help of Ambar, who was extremely gifted, as well as being hungry for knowledge, but after a while the younger boy was sent, with the blessing of Sandeark his tutor, to Yiaï Ho, where Yülien's family were able to arrange for him lessons with (as Wenn Hyaï put it) real teachers, specialists in the topology of the Outside, a subject which finally gave Ambar a chance to make proper use of his burgeoning talent.

Julien could of course have asked for Ambar to be brought back to him on Nüngen every evening, and he did consider it quite seriously. But unfortunately the relative position of their residences on their respective planets, coupled with a small but cumulative difference in the planets' rotation periods, meant that there was a time-lag of more than a quarter of a day, and constant coming and going would waste too much time. It was better that they each stayed put and slept in their own, if sadly widely-separated, beds.

Fortunately Niil was frequently able to keep Julien company, and Dillik, who slept in the next room with Xarax, frequently joined them early in the morning in search of a nice cuddle.

As for Ambar...

oo0oo

Ambar found himself finding out things about the Guides that few humans ever got to know. When his adopted family had offered to let him stay with them he had expected to be given a room with the human servants, but Yülien had insisted, loudly, that he be allowed to share his own den, a small comfortable room which was his own personal space.

While Yülien had been with them on Nüngen Ambar, along with his friends, had realised that Guides and humans did not grow at the same rate. So although Yülien was only a little over five cycles old his physical and intellectual development were on a par with those of Dillik, and he also compensated for his lack of experience with his quick intelligence. He was also insatiably curious and completely uninhibited – so much so that he even managed to surprise Ambar, who was not exactly prudish in his views. While he had been on Nüngen Yülien had refrained from joining in with the various bed-games, simply sleeping at the foot of Julien and Ambar's bed, or on one occasion sharing Ugo's couch. But here in his own room he preferred to snuggle against his companion and establish with him the sort of full, totally constraint-free contact that normally only occurred between members of the same family. It was an experience a bit like the one between Dillik and Xarax. But Ambar wasn't Dillik and Yülien was no haptir.

Ambar was surprised when, after vainly resisting for a few seconds, he found himself wrapped into a kind of embrace that was both pleasantly physical and mental, in which he found himself experiencing a sort of blurring between what was Ambar and what was his companion. He was immersed in a sort of non-verbal communication in which they exchanged emotions, sensations, images and occasionally fragments of more or less coherent sentences. Ambar found that he liked this feeling of closeness a lot, and his body reacted in an unmistakable way. Yülien became aware of the erection at once and answered it with his own version of the phenomenon.

At that point Ambar remembered what little knowledge he had of the customs and nature of the Guides. He had been told that they were all males at birth, but they all retained a potential indetermination until some particular event caused them to adopt definitively one gender or the other. In other words a boy could become a young male adult and then, for some reason, 'determine' himself as female and bear one or several babies. Even the Guides themselves didn't fully understand the mechanism that caused the choice to be made. The only thing that was certain was that once the choice had been made it was irreversible.

Yülien might therefore turn female one day, but for now his virility, though not of a particularly impressive size, was clear, and Ambar, happy amateur of boyish pleasures that he was, was only too willing to demonstrate what an experienced pair of hands could do. And in due course his generosity was repaid, and he realised that until now he had been unaware of exactly what could be achieved by the careful application of an agile tongue.

oo0oo